Monday, September 3, 2012

FHQ has been playing catch up since Tampa, so let's update the electoral college map, shall we? We'll add in new data from Florida and North Carolina -- four new polls -- released last night and this morning in addition to some leftovers from late last week and before. In total, there are ten new -- to our dataset -- surveys from six states.

Polling Quick Hits:
Florida:
One poll does not a bounce make. The Public Policy Polling survey of the Sunshine state conducted in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention in Tampa showed no movement toward Mitt Romney as compared to the previous poll PPP had in the field there. Yet, FHQ would wager that the jury is still out on that. Does PPP show a bounce? No, but that does not mean that it will not show up somewhere else. Romney not winning Florida makes the electoral college math extremely difficult because if Obama is winning in Florida, then the president is likely winning in Iowa, Virginia, Colorado and Ohio as well. Those four states are all on the other side of the partisan line -- behind Florida -- for Romney.

Illinois:
I don't know how much stock to put in the two IPSOS polls of Illinois. On the one hand, they confirm what we already know: Obama will be victorious in the Land of Lincoln. However, these are polls not of registered or even likely voters, but of adults. Obama will win Illinois, but these two surveys may not give us the best idea of how much the president is ahead there.

Michigan:
In the Great Lakes state, Romney improved his share of Michigan respondents in the latest EPIC/MRA survey while Obama maintained both his share and the overall lead in the state. Romney's growth relative to the last poll by the firm cuts into the president's lead there, but is consistent with the most recent polling in Michigan. The margin has shrunk, but still favors Obama. Michigan is one of those states that in 2012 would be what North Carolina was to Obama in 2008: the cherry on top of an already winning electoral college tally.

North Carolina:
The trio of polls in North Carolina collectively show a slight stretching of Romney's advantage in the Tar Heel state. Consequentially, Romney holds a three point edge among registered voters in the update to last week's High Point University poll. That margin would likely be wider among likely voters. Taken with the new Elon poll, then, those two fall in line with other recent polling in North Carolina better than the tie that PPP found in the state. That isn't to say it isn't close in North Carolina -- it is -- but Romney holds an advantage that is going to be difficult for Obama to overcome. The Old North state is in the exact same position it was four years ago. If Obama wins North Carolina, he is adding to an already healthy electoral college vote total. The difference in 2012 is that the trajectory of the polling in the state is not moving in the president's direction.

Virginia:
This Gravis Marketing poll is old. FHQ hinted at it back in early August, but we did not have the requisite information to include it in our averages at the time. After talking with the folks in the polling firm, however, we do now have that information. This is obviously a pre-Ryan poll and is -- at Obama +4 -- consistent with the other polls released around the same time. But there are a lot of undecideds in that poll. That isn't a criticism, but one wonders how those folks would break; particularly since some are likely leaners that were not included in the candidates' totals.

West Virginia:
About all you can say about this pair of polls is that we now have some polling data for West Virginia. That is a good thing. Up to this point -- with no polls -- FHQ was reliant on the previous three elections' results as a means of calibrating where West Virginia fit into the Electoral College Spectrum. And since West Virginia was "competitive" in 2000 and 2004, the average was quite a bit closer than it is in reality in 2012. The two surveys from Repass confirmed that Romney is a step above Obama in the Mountain state.

Despite the influx of data, the map remains unchanged. The Spectrum, on the other hand, witnessed a bit of a shake up if not self correction. West Virginia, as alluded to above, shifted deeper into the Romney half of the Electoral College Spectrum, jumping five states almost to the bottom of the second column over from the right. Illinois, too, saw a broadened margin upon the introduction of new data, but for the president. But those are both safe states for their respective candidates. In the states that are consequential to determining the winner of the electoral college, the new data only served to confirm the preexisting state of the race. Obama has a lead in Michigan, small lead in Virginia, a smaller one in Florida and trails Romney in North Carolina. Romney could push things to Virginia on the Spectrum and still come up short without Ohio or Ohio and Colorado if the order below were to hold in terms of vote margins on election day.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 281 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

The Watch List, like the Spectrum, saw some alterations. Significantly, North Carolina slides off the list which is a small win for Romney. Again, North Carolina is close, but it is now not within a point of moving over toward Obama. Florida is still the closest state and while the Sunshine state is in Obama's column now, it is within range of moving over toward Romney (as it has in several other accountings of the state of the electoral college). Thankfully, West Virginia also moves off a list it never really had any business being on. The Mountain state was never at risk of being just a lean state for the former Massachusetts governor. It just wasn't.

Now if we could just get some polling in the field in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, we would be good to go. Each is a little closer than might otherwise be the case if we had more roust -- or just more -- survey information.

The Watch List1

State

Switch

Connecticut

from Lean Obama

to Strong Obama

Florida

from Toss Up Obama

to Toss Up Romney

Michigan

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

Minnesota

from Strong Obama

to Lean Obama

Montana

from Strong Romney

to Lean Romney

Nevada

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

New Hampshire

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

Wisconsin

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.